£500,000 a year for council boss who 'retired' with golden goodbye... then got new job with ANOTHER local authority

Quids in... with your money: Trevor Doughty had taken early retirement

A council chief cost taxpayers more than £500,000 in a year by taking early retirement then starting another six-figure job two weeks later.

Trevor Doughty, 54, quit his £140,000-a-year post and was given a golden goodbye of the same amount and a £266,400 top-up for his pension pot.

Exactly a fortnight later, the former social worker joined another council on the same salary.

Insiders at Mr Doughty’s former employer, Northumberland County Council, said they were ‘furious’ at the extent of his payout at a time when the authority is having to sack 1,000 workers.

The payout was signed off before officials knew he had taken up a post at Cornwall County Council, which had been advertised for several months before Mr Doughty announced he was ‘retiring’.

Peter Jackson, leader of the Tory opposition on Northumberland County Council and head of the scrutiny committee, said: ‘The council was honouring its contractual obligation but the payout comes at a time when the council is having to cut day to day services and staff.

‘People in the private sector who pay into their pensions for years could never dream of such goldplated pensions. This case highlights the need for reform.’

Last night Communities and Local Government secretary Eric Pickles said: ‘This looks and feels wrong. It’s not right for people to retire from the public sector with a huge pay off then cash in with another six-figure salary elsewhere at the taxpayers expense.’

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Mr Doughty, a married father of three, announced he was taking early retirement as ‘executive director of people’ on March 31. Had he waited a day longer, he would have had to wait until he was 55 to qualify for early retirement after the Government changed the rules.

Mr Doughty, who lived in a £420,000 terraced house in Morpeth, was given a golden goodbye of a year’s salary as ‘compensation for loss of office’, as well as the top-up to his final-salary pension pot.

Two weeks later, on April 13, he took up a £140,000-a-year job as corporate director for children, schools and families in Cornwall, a region that qualifies for EU aid because it is so poor.

Tony Martin, organiser for the Unison union in Northumberland, said: ‘Most of our members get paid up to £15,000 a year and are lucky to get pensions of £4,000 to £6,000 a year if they work for the council for 40 years.

‘They are furious when they see their jobs going – especially in a rural area like ours where they are scarce – at the same time that executives get these massive payouts.’

A spokesman for Northumberland County Council said: ‘The agreed arrangement we reached with Trevor Doughty was part of a senior management review designed to release major savings of approximately £1.2million a year.

‘Over the last three to four years we have had to save nearly £ 100million and that is impossible unless we reduce the salary bill – in part by allowing people to retire early.’

‘At the time of signing the contract the county council was not aware of the former director’s interest in other posts within the country.’

The Government has asked former Labour work and pensions secretary Lord Hutton to lead an investigation into public sector pensions.